Papers by Arpad Szakolczai
Understanding New Wars, Cambridge, UK. 1213 Feb …, 2010
This paper aims at thoroughly analyzing Borkenau’s 1934 book Der Ubergang vom feudalen zum burger... more This paper aims at thoroughly analyzing Borkenau’s 1934 book Der Ubergang vom feudalen zum burgerlichen Weltbild (The Transition from the Feudal to the Bourgeois World Image), which not only is a hidden classic, but it is also particularly relevant in the contemporary effort to re-think technology. Specifically, the paper focuses on Borkenau’s use of the term Weltbild with regard to its relation with modern science, mechanism, and technology, showing that Borkenau’s idea of Weltbild represents a crucial ring in the chain between Dilthey and Weber on the one hand, and Heidegger and Foucault on the other.
East European Politics & Societies, 1991
... For the results of the full study, see Agnes Horváth and Arpad Szakolczai, Senkifòídjén: A po... more ... For the results of the full study, see Agnes Horváth and Arpad Szakolczai, Senkifòídjén: A politikai instruktorok tevékenységéro'l az állampártban (On No Man's Land: The Activity of Political Instructors in the Party-State) (Budapest, 1989). ...
Page 1. European Sociological' Review,Vo\. 14 No. 3, 211-229 211 Value Systems in Axial Mome... more Page 1. European Sociological' Review,Vo\. 14 No. 3, 211-229 211 Value Systems in Axial Moments A Comparative Analysis of 24 European Countries Arpdd S%akolc%ai and Las^/o Fiistos The aim of this paper is to develop ...
Based on six national representative surveys conducted in Hungary in between 1977 and 1997 using ... more Based on six national representative surveys conducted in Hungary in between 1977 and 1997 using the Rokeach value test, this article tries to assess the extent to which the communist period left a 'stamp' on the preferences of basic human values.
International Sociology, 2001
This article provides a conceptual and historical analysis of the term 'civilization'. It argues ... more This article provides a conceptual and historical analysis of the term 'civilization'. It argues that in substantive terms, the core meaning of civilization is the limiting of violence in inter-human relations, while in terms of historical methodology, the rise of 'civilization' is to be connected to periods of dissolution of order. Such periods are conceptualized using the work of Victor Turner on liminality, and of René Girard on the sacrificial mechanism. On the basis of these findings, the article proceeds to thematize the 'civilizing process', using the concepts of brotherhood, institutionalization, asceticism, charisma and parrhesia (the frank practice of truth-telling, based on Foucault's unpublished lectures). It argues that a core idea of the European civilizing process, the revelation of the persecuting crowd, can be found not simply in the works but the lives and deaths of its two major founding figures, Socrates and Jesus. In its concluding pages, the article argues that 'globalization' thus has two main driving forces: the 'spirit' of capitalism, that Weber traced back to the 'Protestant ethic', but also the Gospel story in which, in a Girardian reading of Elias, the European 'civilizing process' can be rooted. keywords: asceticism ✦ civilizing process ✦ liminality ✦ mimesis ✦ parrhesia ✦ sacrifice 'Civilization' is a complex, multilayered, controversial term. One must start by clarifying its meaning. The first question concerns the nature of the 'entity' denoted. This immediately leads to a paradox. It seems that this term, and its adjective, work at two very distinct levels. On the one hand, civilization refers to very large entities, encompassing a number of other macro-units like nations or societies. There is something 'ultimate' in the term at this level. It is in this sense that Toynbee considered civilizations as the proper units
European Journal of Social Theory, 2005
This article argues that the dominant role played by intellectuals in East Central Europe was mot... more This article argues that the dominant role played by intellectuals in East Central Europe was motivated by a deeply felt Enlightenment missionary belief. This establishes affinities between them and the ancient Sophists, and the ambivalence of such a position is illustrated through the case of Georg Lukács. As examples of philosophers in the classical sense of the term, the article
History of The Human Sciences, 2007
This article argues that the modern world is not only produced by, and is promoting, processes of... more This article argues that the modern world is not only produced by, and is promoting, processes of rationalization and disenchantment, but is also the site of 'enchanting' influences that are genuinely 'charming' or 'magical'. Such modes of influencing rely increasingly on the power of images, and on theatre-like performances of words or discourses. The impact takes place under conditions that, following Victor Turner's work, could be called 'liminal', and which can be turned through 'imagemagic' into a state of 'permanent liminality'. A path-breaking analysis of such influences can be found in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, written at a highly liminal moment in European history, the end of the Renaissance and the unfolding of the Reformation. It is argued that the central problem of the play is the source of the power that motivates, from the inside, human beings. Shakespeare attributes this power to images through which human beings can be incited to act, in particular to fall in love, and assigns a decisive role in the manipulation of such images to the Trickster figure of folk-tales and myths. Such image-magic makes its victims believe that they gained enlightenment, maturing to reason, exactly when succumbing to its influence; while its lasting impact is the confusion of the senses, or the power to distinguish and discriminate.
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Papers by Arpad Szakolczai